Our basic needs are potentials.

Getting my mind around this concept took time but eventually it gave me mental resource I needed in the matter of becoming human.

Previously if I thought about it at all I saw needs as deficits so if the tank is empty fill it up or the bank balance in the red to find some money fast. But somehow this was like chasing my tail or the notion that if I tried harder I could 'make it'and imagine how I would feel,

Manfred Max-Neef's theory of needs required that I must get to grips with the idea of basic needs as potentials. e.g.to understand what was bugging me I had to do the work of understanding and not hope someone would give me an easy answer. To participate I had to join in. So with all the needs; and they became in time dynamic.

Realising those potentials is normal everyday human experience.

As we realise the potential of our needs so we realise our full potential as human beings

Sue Gerhart in her 'why love matters' shows that a mother's real love and care in the first two years of her infant’s life makes all the difference. With it the child grows up resilient and confident, able to manage her feelings and develop intimate relationships.

So we are less than human when we are used, dumbed down, seduced or fobbed off

We are bugged by qualified satisfaction of our needs that seem ok but are a drag.

When we make hard work of life and probably try too hard we sell ourselves short. In such situations we seem never to get it right and probably feel inadequate.

But a better understanding of the matter of realising the potential of our fundamental needs might enable us to manage our own selves to better effect.

Stay with the need to understand. To pretend to understand is the sort of sloppy behaviour we adopt early on at school and home and even out and about. To say we don't understand when others seem to have got the point takes real courage.
All too often we play dumb and seem to get away with it and no one seems to notice but our sense of self (identity) suffers

Put another way when we feel out of sorts we're probably experiencing qualified satisfaction our basic needs.

Manfred Max-Neef suggests these are mental traps we fall into as and as such is experienced subjectively when

1. we are violated or used…maybe we were asleep

2. we are inhibited and can’t speak… maybe we woke up too late and were essentially deferential

3. we are seduced by what is phoney, bogus or flawed.. maybe we were not alert

4. we are fobbed off, given simplistic answers to complex questions …. maybe our response was showed we were not resilient

When we fall into such a trap we do well to find a real friend (someone worthy of our love) with whom to share (participation, affection) the sense of having sold ourselves short.

By reflecting (a basic need in any case) on any less that satisfying experience we can understand (another basic need) that in such a situation we had little sense of our own worth (ie a sense of identity, yet another basic need).

Another way of seeing the drag is through ugly feelings

Ugly feelings correspond to the idea of qualified satisfaction of our basic needs. Yet the notion of drag is enough to put off those searching, even if in vain, for an unfettered life.

We can suffer qualified satisfaction of our basic needs almost by default. Not knowing how to realise their potential we can experience a deep sense of inadequacy when we experience that state.

As infants we can fall into a hornets nest filled with ugly feelings. In such a situation we flounder and get accustomed to and then take as normal their debilitating effect

Yet we can wake up to our predicament and realise with Pilgrim when stuck in a dungeon of Giant Despair the key to getting out is in our own breast, our own sense of purpose

Coming out as human is no quick fix

Say for twenty forty sixty and in my case eighty years we've got through and coped with what life has thrown at us. Some people get on and make something of themselves and like little Jack Horner can put in his thimb and pull out a plum and say what a good boy am I. In such a hostile world others of us feel we are strangers and afraid in a world we never made. (The gist of that line from A.E.Houseman haunted me for years)

Yet we can see life from a different perspective. Start with the idea that we, homo sapiens, have taken say three millions years to evolve with beautifully functioning minds which for better for worse we use every day.

With such minds and in a quantum leap of imagination we can find ourselves living in a purposeful habitat where we don't have to try too hard nor take on too much nor do we have to make something of ourselves. We function as elegantly as a fish does in water and in such an enviroment we can come out as human.

Tuesday, 4 December 2007

More on understanding, affection, participation etc


On 2nd December Prof. David Shemmings at Kent University explained the way attachment behaviour is organised in three different ways, which developed evolutionarily to the different ways infants gained proximity to a primary caregiver. "I link this to the concept of ‘theory of mind’, and draw together three different strands: a) why we experience parts of the world unconsciously b) how this shows itself in the way our brains are wired and c) what effect this has on our early attachment relationships".

It was not just what he said but the way he said it made all the difference. It's obvious that David enjoys living and in speaking as he did created a congenial environment which made such sense.

eg. He suggested that to ask another to trust you is one thing but to act towards him or her in a trustworthy manner is what really matters. And with his reference to ToM this entry could well belong in the new skills section of this blog but on balance I'm entering it as a new resource.

We think in terms of social workers dealing with difficult situations in clients or serice users lives; yet such a worker dealing with her case load has others on her mind hwther at work or at home each with difficulties in their own lives. David's approach made sense who ever a listener had in mind at any moment in his address.

So confidence develops almost automatically in such an environment.

Posted by Gordon Carter at 00:52 0 comments

Monday, 19 November 2007

Seductive simplicity.

As a child long long ago my mother taught me evening prayers which included a line 'pity my simplicity' so that even the idea of simplicity set my teeth on edge.

Yesterday I saw how complex relationships are. Some years ago mi amiga Anna shared with her mother some concern over Alex her then teenage daughter; her mother's response was to teach Alex to cook. Now ten years later she has a home and family of her own and enjoys cooking.

Every time Alex turns to cooking she is inadvertently tapping into her relationship with her grandmother who alas died in the meantime. Can we begin to imagine the extent of the relationship that inadvertently attends her every time she goes to the kitchen and sets about the act and the art of cooking.

We can glimpse the value and the scope of the relationship between three women and the compexity over years of the thought that goes into Alex's skill and interest.

Such a report of our humanity is repeated countless times every day. Such is the stuff of our living and thinking and our conversations and encounters.
Posted by Gordon Carter at 02:56 0 comments

Monday, 8 October 2007

Realising the potential of our constant and dynamic fundamental human needs.


Manfred Max-Neef introduced me to the idea that our needs are potentials and this has made all the difference.
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Read of Manfred's theory
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And Chapter 12 of web site includes video taken from the Channel 4 profile of him in his native Chile.

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Posted by Gordon Carter at 03:56 0 comments

Friday, 25 May 2007

What happens when we fail to realise the potentials of our needs

But if we deny the urge to realise the potential of our needs we suffer and in the end will snatch at anything which seems to satisfy us (to shut us up) if only for the time being. Snatching at whatever is at hand is problematic and dangerous particularly if we drink contaminated water or believe and then act on received wisdom, lies and half truths.

So what if we satisfy
our urge for protection and security by buying phoney or suspect insurance
our urge for affection by selling ourselves short and
our urge for understanding by going along with what's being said
our urge for participation by joining in an activity to avoid a sense of lonliness
our urge to reflect by finding good reasons to blame someone else for our misfortune
our urge to create by making flawed if not spurious decisions
our urge for identity by hunting and clamouring for status
our urge for freedom by running away from our responsibilities.

Experience of such qualified satisfaction of our fundamental human needs is a can of worms, a black hole, an environment in which detrimental sticky embedded contextual and tacit knowledge can drag us into worry from which there seems no escape.
Posted by Gordon Carter at 06:44 0 comments

Affection: this takes a lot of understanding


Usual idea is that someone will love us and that seems to work for many people. Sometimes we rely on promises that someone will love us for ever.

But we do well to understand that we are innately affectionate people. We were born that way and unless something goes wrong we spontaneously return the affection we're usually given

But what if we satisfy our urge for affection by selling ourselves short and snatch at love
It's useful to remember that a friend is someone we find worthy of our love, and vice versa
Posted by Gordon Carter at 03:30 0 comments
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